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BENSALEM, Pa. — An employee of the local school district here was arrested on Monday for allegedly stealing and reselling more than $400,000 worth of auto supplies, WPVI reports.

Police detained Frederick Lange after an ongoing investigation into the theft and sale of Bensalem Township School District property. Investigators said that Lange, the district's lead mechanic and shop foreman, stole truck tires, batteries and other items over a period of 10 years.

What is most surprising with some school systems is that they still do paper work instead of electronic filing. There is usually only one way an "individual" can accomplish such thefts - they are in control of the purchases from start to finish submission of purchases to business office for checks to be approved and mailed out to the businesses. Those would be usually legit purchase orders that are tracked by businesses mailing in bills on monthly basis. The way that I would suspect individuals taking advantage of their employers is from stocked supplies or false work orders where a part or supplies were charged to a certain vehicle yet never used upon such a vehicle. Fuel thefts are basically the same - charge the fuel to a certain vehicle unit identification number yet used the fuel in whatever it was they stole fuel for. I have always pushed for electronic tracking systems. The best advice I can think of right off the top of my head is to contact your State Board of Accounts. Ask them what State wide electronic tracking software they recommend for individual school systems. They may already have such software available and local people don't want to change or there are suspected reasons as to why they would not want electronic tracking for the department's business practices. Another dead give a way is an employee who simply will NOT take vacations. They do not want someone else having any knowledge of what they have been doing or even speaking with sales vendors that may come in unannounced should they be out on vacation. Electronic tracking of the supplies, parts, fuel etc., is the way to go. Check the links section of the school bus industry publication websites. Speak with neighboring school systems to see what they recommend. Very large metropolitan school systems have already been electronic tracking for many years. Take Detroit for instance their shops operate 24 hours a day since their fleet is so large. If you want to find the information - it is out the

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